The present invention is directed toward a system for loading and unloading bottles, vials or other similar containers into and out of a freeze dryer, oven, autoclave or other material treating apparatus and, more particularly, to such a system which can automatically load or unload an entire shelf of bottles or other containers without manual assistance.
Freeze dryers, sometimes referred to as lyophilization autoclaves, are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry for desiccating pharmaceuticals in bottles and sealing the bottles. Conventional freeze dryers include a plurality of vertically movable shelves. When the dryer is empty, all of the shelves are in the lowermost position and a tray of bottles is manually loaded onto the uppermost shelf. Conventionally, this is accomplished by the use of a three-sided tray which has the bottles on the upper surface thereof in aligned rows and columns.
Normally a hoop surrounds all of the bottles on a tray in order to help maintain them in an upright position. The tray with the bottles thereon is placed on the shelf and is then manually slid outwardly so that all of the bottles and the hoop remain in the dryer. The shelf is then moved upwardly and the process is repeated with a second group of bottles being placed on the second shelf. As each shelf moves upwardly, it engages either the top of the dryer or the shelf above it to force the bottle stoppers down into the bottles in order to seal the same.
The unloading of a freeze dryer shelf is conventionally done in substantially the same manner. That is, the lowermost shelf with the bottles thereon is lowered and a three-sided tray is slid under the bottles. The combined tray, bottles and hoop is then manually removed from the shelf.
The foregoing conventional process is slow and labor intensive and is, accordingly, relatively expensive. It has been proposed to use a carriage assembly or the like for moving a plurality of bottles into the vicinity of a freeze dryer shelf so that the same can then be slid onto the shelf. One such system is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,455. However, the system shown in that patent remains labor intensive.
To Applicant's knowledge, no one heretofore has proposed an automatic system for loading and unloading bottles into and out of a freeze dryer without manual intervention. Such a system would, of course, greatly increase the speed of operation and reduce the costs involved.